Lions’ Jones defends Patricia: ‘It’s football. We run’

Detroit Lions wide receiver Marvin Jones shot down the notion that new head coach Matt Patricia is alienating his players by making them run for mistakes made in practice.

“Shoot, it’s football. We run. You know what I’m saying?” Jones told NFL Network’s Good Morning Football on Thursday. “Nobody is complaining. Everybody is just going out here working hard and we’re having fun doing it.

“So, whoever’s grandma wrote that story, I don’t know.”

Carlos Monarrez of The Detroit Free Press wrote a column that said the first-year head coach could lose his players by using such a method.

“That’s one thing I do is run,” the 28-year-old Jones said of Patricia making players take laps as punishment. “In the NFL, you have to be able to run all day. I mean these practices, they’ve been great. Obviously, we use this part of the offseason to set that solid foundation and I think that’s what we’ve been doing.

“We’re not the Patriots, so all the players saying ‘Oh, we don’t like it there’ and stuff like that, we’re doing our thing here. It’s a new regime, it’s a new Detroit Lions right now.”

Jones is looking to build off a strong season in which he had 61 receptions for a career-high 1,101 yards and nine touchdowns over 16 games.

Patricia was hired by the Lions on Feb. 5, one day after New England fell to the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LII. Patricia previously served as defensive coordinator of the Patriots.

He replaced Jim Caldwell, who was fired on Jan. 11 after posting a 36-28 record in four seasons with the club.